'Senna' director to work on official Amy Winehouse documentary

Amy Winehouse is to be the subject of a new documentary from the director of Senna, it has been confirmed.

The currently untitled film will be directed by Asif Kapadia, who directed the 2010 film Senna, which pieced together the story of Formula One driver Ayrton Senna's life before he was tragically killed in an accident at the San Marino Grand Prix in 1994. James Gay-Rees, producer of the Banksy documentary Exit Through The Gift Shop, is also attached the Amy Winehouse film with Focus Features International expected to shop the film to studios at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival.

A family statement about the film reads: ""The Winehouse family have been approached with many proposals for a documentary about Amy's life and work. We treated the subject with great care, with a desire to tell her story right. The award winning producers of Senna presented a vision that would look at Amy’s story sensitively, honestly, without sensationalising her. We want this to be a tribute to her musical legacy."

Releasing a statement about the film, Gay-Rees and Kapadia state: "This is an incredibly modern, emotional and relevant film that has the power to capture the zeitgeist and shine a light on the world we live in, in a way that very few films can," said Kapadia and Gay-Rees. Amy was a once-in-a-generation talent who captured everyone's attention; she wrote and sung from the heart and everyone fell under her spell. But tragically Amy seemed to fall apart under the relentless media attention, her troubled relationships, her global success and precarious lifestyle. As a society we celebrated her huge success but then we were quick to judge her failings when it suited us."

Meanwhile, Mitch Winehouse has said that Beyonce"brings nothing" to his daughter Amy's song 'Back To Black', which the singer has covered as part of the soundtrack for the Hollywood version of The Great Gatsby. The song, which sees Beyonce collaborating with Andre 3000 of OutKast, was originally recorded and released by Amy Winehouse on the hugely successful album of the same name.